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| Ruth and I on the Oregon Coast |
The light at the end of the tunnel is slowly appearing! There are only a handful of races left this season and we're in the home stretch. Don't get me wrong, I love racing, but after being on the road almost every weekend, all summer long, it is nice to know you will have a few days at home to rest and relax.
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| Abbey Road? |
I skipped the Mt. Spokane round of the All Gravity Series to head to the Oregon coast with my wife and her family. 4 days of relaxing on the beach does wonders to rejuvenate someone. We went on some fun hikes, Rode horses on the beach, and went surfing. The only sad part was that it had to end.
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| Ruth, Me, and Austin sitting on the porch of our rental house. |
I arrived back in Issaquah to find another box from Kenda had arrived for me. This time it was the DH tires! I mounted up a 2.5 Nexcavator in the new 42 durometer compound to the front of my DH bike and put a 2.5 Excavator Stick-E (50 durometer) in the rear and headed to Exit 27 to try it all out. The conditions right now are really dry and blown out, but the tires hooked up well. They felt predictable and held their edge on corners much more than the Nevegals I've run in the past. I'm excited to get some rain again and test them in proper northwest conditions.
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| New shoes! I've been really impressed with these tires, I'll give a more thorough review once it gets wet. |
Last weekend, Jill Kintner called me and asked if I wanted to go hit up Kachees ridge in Easton Washington. I've heard that it is a fun all-mountain shuttled ride and was excited to go. Her fiance, World Cup racer Bryn Atkinson, broke his femur earlier this year and was relegated to shuttle driver. Bryn said the road was really fun to drive and actually seemed the most excited out of any of us to be there! He is back walking again and hopefully will be back on the bike soon. Travis Erickson, Jill and I rode the first lap and ran into a bunch of other riders for the second lap. It was a great day of riding and I was blown away by the scenery.
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| Bryn walking again! |
The view from the top of Kachees is amazing. You have an amazing overlook of Mt Rainier and the surrounding mountains, along with looking down at Lake Kachees. The ride is an all-mountain ride that has a few really technical decents, one hike a bike and some really fun flowy trail following a creek for a few miles. I was loving the trail, but on our second lap, I clipped a rock with my rear end and ripped my derrailur off the bike. fortunatley the trail flows pretty well, so with a little scootering, I was able to coast to the last downhill and rip it back to the car. I need to get out and do more rides like this. Riding new trails is always fun!
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| I forgot my camera in the truck, so these are the only two photos I have. Jill should have some more on her phone. If I can get them, I will post them. |
In safety news, I decided at the beginning of this year that I was going to run a Leatt brace this season. A Leatt brace is a neck brace designed to keep your neck from snapping in the event of a big crash. Diamondback helped get me set up with one and I'm glad I will be wearing one now.
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| Will Smith in "Wild Wild West" sporting the original Leatt brace. |
At the Mt Spokane race that I skipped, a friend of mine and all around good guy, John Henry had a nasty crash and ended up breaking his neck and back. Fortunatly he can still walk and has complete movement. He was fortunatly wearing a Leatt brace and it probably saved his life.
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| Get well soon John! |
In the interest of fashion however, I decided that I didn't want the basic stock color. Rob Crump had told me he dyed his and it looked great. I decided I would give it a go and try to make it not white. I decided to make it red to match the Diamondback team colors, as the the plastic parts are already white and black.
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| Step 1. Buy Dye. |
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Step 2. Cook pads in tomato soup.
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| Step 3. Profit! |
I also just booked my tickets to National Champs at the end of the month. The rest of this month is filling up quickly. World Champs are this weekend, my parents are visiting next weekend, then Interbike, National Champs, and Silveroxx. After all of that, only the Moscow race will remain to finish the season!
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| Sam hill runs a Leatt, so it must be fast! |
See you at the next ride.
-KT
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